First Love Gelato

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Artisanal Italian Gelato cart
Award Winning
Real ingredients, made fresh
Follow your joy

📍 Serving around Mount Maunganui / Papamoa, follow for updates

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Follow your joy

19/09/2026

Just honey and allulose in this one as my main sweeteners, at under 10g sugar per 100g its less than half than most ice cream and less than most breakfast cereal!! Still not claiming this is healthy, but every little counts right.

Allulose is great as it has a strong antifreezing power so you dont need to use too many sugars overall.

The milk and cream and skim milk powder have lactose which will also count towards the total sugars.
The vegetable fat in the cocoa mass works in the opposite direction and hardens the mix in this recipe so the overall PAC of the mix is quite high to counter this. This recipe made a milk chocolate with light honey notes and I was delighted not to get any weird sweetener aftertaste which I can't stand.

Recipe for 1kg mix:

Milk (3.4% fat) 545g
Cream (36% fat) 150g
Allulose 100g
Roasted Cocoa nibs 80g
Honey 50g
Skim milk powder 40g
Egg yolk 36g

The recipe is likely irrelevant as you're not gonna bother melanging for 24hrs but just in case 😂

23/08/2026

1kg mix:
Whole milk (3.4%) 450g
Fresh cream (36%) 196g
Espresso coffee 108g (3 × 36 espresso shots)
Sucrose 142g
Dextrose 45g
Skim milk powder 50g
Stabilizer/emulsifier blend 'neutro" 4-5g
Salt: 4g

Method:
-Set aside 100g of the sucrose for caramelising.
-Gently warm the cream, milk, and remaining sucrose & salt to 40°C
-Mix the neutro blend with the dextrose first to disperse it evenly and avoid clumping, then whisk this in when mix is 40 degrees
- Also whisk in the skim milk powder at 40°C
- Caramalise sugar: Make a slurry with the reserved sucrose and a small amount of water, then heat until deep golden brown and liquid
-Once the mix reaches close to 80°C, add the caramelised sugar in slowly to avoid splattering and bubbling.
-Pasteurise the whole mix to 85°C, then cool quickly
-Add in the espresso shots, stick blend, then mature in fridge 6-8hrs or overnight.
-Pop in the ice cream machine😊

05/07/2026

This is the entire process I use for making any Italian Gelato for my Gelato cart events. The only main difference equipment wise ( other than machine size) between this "tiny scale" and a big gelato shop would be using a dedicated pasteuriser instead of stove top heating and blast cooling (though a blast freezer would still typically be used as the very last step in large production shops too after batch freezing)

It is likely an abomination not to have egg yolks in this recipe but I'm not fussed on eggs and the sweet marsala cremovo w**e has egg yolk. And it's my birthday so I get to pick 😂

Recipie:
Mascarpone 210g
Sucrose: 135g
Dextrose: 20g
Marsala cremovo: 80g
Whole milk: 300g
Water: 166g
Neutro: 5g ( I used locust bean gum, guar gum and sunflower lecithin which are all plant based)
Espresso: 36g
Skim milk powder: 50g

16/06/2026

I love using this software https://icecreamcalc.com/
If you need a new niche hoppy / passion / pursuit then take this as your sign to dive into ice cream and gelato science

11/06/2026

Entered this blind taste ice cream awards a few months after starting to learn to make Italian Gelato. I will take a humble bronze as for my roasty pears.

For production I just used the Musso Lello and then straight into a normal home chest freezer for this one and it came out with great consistency on the blind test review. Home machines can really make fabulous gelato now

A lot of the main big companies enter the same so it goes to show that you can compete on consistancy with current types of home machines like Musso etc.

So if your wondering if these home machines like Musso can make great stuff, they can, if you have a great recipie and ingredients. (Without saying the obvious that their size capacity is much less and production will be way slower) For starting out a Gelato journey experimenting with a few litres occasionally of *very* small batch ice cream / gelato for your cafe or food market etc, it's a great choice I reckon as a gateway gelato drug into bigger and better machines.

09/06/2026

New Zealand has the highest world wide rate of ice cream consumption. Thankfully I can average at least 3 litres weekly with my my own batch freezer so will have enough to fuel the family for the winter and extend the distance to second place in the world rankings.

In the meantime lets learn to make Italian Gelato from scratch.

05/04/2026

Science is fun when you can eat it

We ❤️ weddings.Adding a little gelato memory on an unforgettable day is our privilege! The flavour eating rankings that ...
25/01/2026

We ❤️ weddings.

Adding a little gelato memory on an unforgettable day is our privilege!

The flavour eating rankings that day:
🥇salted caramel
🥈raspberry & white chocolate
🥉(tied) mango sorbet. Chocolate

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